Karin Dor, actress – obituary

Karin Dor with Sean Connery in You Only Live TwiceCredit:
United Artists/Getty Images)

10 January 2018 • 6:36am

Karin Dor, the actress, who has died aged 79, was largely confined to playing wide-eyed ingénues before breaking out as tempestuous leading lady in crime thrillers and horrors; it was, however, her role as the Bond Girl Helga Brandt in You Only Live Twice (1967) which made her a household name.

She was born Kätherose Derr in Wiesbaden, Germany, on February 22 1938. While still at ballet school she was spotted by a talent scout and offered a series of bit parts in films. She soon drew attention from directors and producers, including Harald Reinl, who cast her in a series of films under his direction. In 1954, aged 16, she married Reinl who was 30 years her senior.

By the following year, she had earned enough credibility to be billed above the title for the tense drama, As Long as You Live (1955).

In the 1960s Karin Dor shone in the terrifying thriller The Terrible People (1960), followed...